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METROPOLITAN RACING • •* New York Spring Race Meetings Near at Hand. ♦ Next Saturday United Hunts Entertains at Belmont Park — Jamaica Opens April 29. ♦ XEW YORK. April 20. — The racing season of 1924 will be ushered in at Belmont Park on Saturday next, when the first of the two days allotted to the United Hunts will give the public an opportunity to show its delight at the revival of a sport that has made friends rapidly within the past few years. The program offered on that occasion by Secretary Buck includes races through the field and on the flat. There is every indication that the number and quality of the entries will surpass those of previous years. The feature of the opening days card promises to be the International Subscription Steeplechase for a purse of ,000 open to horses bought abroad by the syndicate endeavoring to promote the cause of crosscountry sport in the United States. It is at two miles, and a number of good horses are being pointed for it. There is promise of a good race in the Cotton Exchange Steeplechase, open to all four-year-olds and over, which is run on the same day and is also over the "about two miles" route. Mondays fixture includes the Biltmore Steeplechase for j a purse of ,000 and the Master of Fox-hounds Association Steeplechase for hunters over the three and one-half-mile timber course. The following day, Tuesday the 29th, the flags will be flying at Jamaica and the Jockey Club season will be on. Jamaica in one of the most popular courses of the Metropolitan Circuit. The weather is usually good early in May, and the quality of the i sport is such as to warrant the attendance I of a representative throng whenever the best horses parade. FINE FIELD IX PROSPECT. The feature of Jamaicas opening day will be the Paumonok Handicap, one j of the sprinting features of the year, with a cash value of ,000. It is run over the three-quarter route and has rixty-two eligibles, which include the pick of thoroughbreds in training. It should bring to the post many good three-year-olds, and if St. James, Sara-zen, Lord Baltimore II., Anna Marone II., ; Fluvanna, Tree Top, Sun Flag. Ordinance and Happy Thoughts should sport silks along with I Zev, Dunlin. G« shawk, Little Chief, Osprey, Mad Hatter. Sunf. renco, Miss Star, Flagstaff, and other flyers in the four-year-old and upwards division, the best traditions of the race will be lived up to, for there are few events with a better record for hard-fought finishes than this same Paumonok Handicap, which was named in honor of a well-known Brooklyn social club. Zev won it in 1923 and I went from it to triumph in the Kentucky Derhy. The biggest money winner in the I history of the American turf is sure to be | the top weight for the prize and the race may serve to introduce him to his host of admirers at the outset of a campaign in which I he is slated to meet Epinard, as one of our j representative American champions. Tha I Suffolk Claiming Stakes for two-year-olds at I one-half mile will also be run on the opening day at Jamaica. MASTER ROBERTS CASE. The victory of the twice discarded twelve-year-old Master Bobert recently in the Liver-I pool Grand National, which was worth more than 0,000 to the winner, is one more proof j that it pays to be patient with horses that I have capabilities for certain tasks. Master ; Bobert STBS so deficient in speed that he was practically worthless as a racing prospect, but he had the jumping conformation and, I after being tried and found wanting on the j flat, he was sold for less than $.".00 to be used as a hunter. It was as a hunter that lie passed to his present owner. Lord Airlie, . for ,100, and it was under the tutelage of i this good amateur sportsnun that Master | Robert came into his own. lie won a chase I with his owner in the saddle and displayed ] such ability over a big hunting country that I Grand .National aspirations were aroused. It is said to have been part of the original plan to have the Prince of Wales ride the horse in the Grand National. But the fall sustained by the heir apparent to the British throne a few w-eks prior to the running of the greatest of all cross-country classics spoiled a good story that would have been read with interest the world over, and it j was a sturdy young SSllftissllMMl named I Trwdgill who had the mount at Aintree instead of the plucky Prince f Wales, whose nerve quality surpasses his horsemanship. That Mast fir Robert was the best horse in the Grand National is a matter of doubt, for as Tom Welsh, the veteran trainer, remarked at the Jet-Together dinner of President John McE. Bowman of the United Hunts at the Biltmore on Monday evening, "The best kesni rarely wins the Grand National. The fields are unusually large, the ,1ontinurcl on second pag. METROPOLITAN RACING Continued from first page. course the severest in the world and the presence of so many loose horses before the race is half over is a menace that may turn an aJmost certain victory into defeat." Incidentally the British expert E. E. Oous-sell calls attention to the fact that Master Robert is the first stallion to win the Grand National in twenty-three years. It has not been the custom to put entire horses to jumping in the United States, but a number of them were included in the syndicate importations last autumn and they will be seen shortly in action at the United Hunts meeting at Belmont Park. John McE. Bowmans. Trayecn Triscough and Mrs. Jeorge W. Lofts Brilajinic IV. are both ent.re horses. Top Hat, the half brother to Tracery and
